Female genital mutilation in #Egypt #UNICEF #women_right

Female genital mutilation in Egypt "the highest in the world."

According to UNICEF, 91% of women in Egypt are victims of female genital mutilation (FGM) - the largest number in a single country in the world.



The image below was shared by CNN in 1996 and caused outrage, and shows a 10-year-old girl being mutilated at a barbershop in Cairo.

Due to this, there are many misconceptions surrounding the legality and religiosity of FGM.

FGM was illegalized in Egypt in 1996 (except in hospitals). However, it was the death of an 11-year-old girl in 2007 that led to the complete ban of FGM in Egypt.

In 1997, Egypt's Al-Azhar Institution, the highest authority in the Sunni Islamic world, stated that female circumcision is "un-Islamic" and has nothing to do with religion. The former Grand Imam of al-Azhar, Sheikh Muhammad Tantawi, even declared that his own daughter had not undergone the operation.

--> In the past two years, Al-Azhar has reiterated that FGM is un-Islamic and should not occur under any circumstances. Nevertheless, Al-Azhar's calls were silenced during Morsi's regime which was dominated by ultra-conservative Islamists.

While more than three-quarters of Egyptian girls are said to have had their genitals mutilated by this illegal act that violates basic human rights, the government (both current and past) continues to ignore the problem and fails to raise awareness.

Prevalence of FGM in Africa. For more detailed maps, see Mackie and UNICEF 2013, p. 26.

--> Information about the prevalence of FGM has been collected since 1989 in a series ofDemographic and Health Surveys and Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). In 2013 UNICEF published a report based on 70 of these surveys, indicating that FGM is concentrated in 27 African countries, as well as in Yemen and Iraqi Kurdistan, and that 125 million women and girls in those countries have been affected

The practice is mostly found in what political scientist Gerry Mackie describes as an "intriguingly contiguous zone" in Africa, from Senegal in the west to Somalia in the east, and from Egypt in the north to Tanzania in the south, intersecting in Sudan.^[72] According to UNICEF, the top rates are in Somalia (with 98 percent of women affected), Guinea (96 percent), Djibouti (93 percent), Egypt (91 percent), Eritrea (89 percent), Mali (89 percent), Sierra Leone (88 percent), Sudan (88 percent), Gambia (76 percent), Burkina Faso (76 percent), Ethiopia (74 percent), Mauritania (69 percent), Liberia (66 percent), and Guinea-Bissau (50 percent).

Around one in five cases is in Egypt. Forty-five million women over the age of 15 who had experienced FGM were living in Egypt, Ethiopia and northern Sudan as of 2008, and nine million were in Nigeria.^[74] Most of the women experience Types I and II. Type III is predominant in Djibouti, Somalia and Sudan, and in areas of Eritrea and Ethiopia near those countries. USAID estimated in 2008 that around eight million women in Africa over the age of 15 were living with Type III.

Outside Africa FGM occurs in Yemen (23 percent prevalence), among the Kurds in Iraq (giving the country an overall prevalence rate of eight percent), Indonesia and Malaysia.^[76] It has been documented in India, among the Bedouin in Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and by anecdote in Colombia, Oman, Peru and Sri Lanka.^[77] There are indications that it is performed in Jordan and Saudi Arabia, although no nationally representative information is available for those countries.^[78] There are also immigrant communities that practise it in Australia and New Zealand, Europe, Scandinavia, the United States and Canada.^[11]

In 2013 UNICEF reported a downward trend in some countries. In Kenya and Tanzania women aged 45–49 years were three times more likely to have been cut than girls aged 15–19, and the rate among adolescents in Benin, Central African Republic, Iraq, Liberia and Nigeria had dropped by almost half.^[79] In 2005 the organization reported that the median age at which FGM was performed had fallen in Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Kenya and Mali. Possible explanations include that, in countries clamping down on the practice, it is easier to cut a younger child without being discovered, and that the younger the girls are, the less they can resist.

حملة إلكترونية لإدراج «الإخوان» ضمن قائمة «المنظمات الإرهابية» بالعالم #Egypt

تم تدشين الحملة العالمية لجمع التوقيعات لكى يتم ارداج منظمة الاخوان المسلمين ضمن منظمات الارهاب الدولية ولمطالبة منظمات المجتمع الدولي، ومناشدة  بأصحاب الضمير الشرفاء فى كل مكان، بحظر نشاط الجماعة بكل ما هو متاح من الوسائل، واعتبارها تنظيمًا إرهابيًا، ومصادرة مقراتها وأملاكها وأموالها،

للتوقيع من هنا

لمطالبة منظمات المجتمع الدولي، ومناشدة ما وصفهم بأصحاب الضمير الشرفاء فى كل مكان، بحظر نشاط الجماعة بكل ما هو متاح من الوسائل، واعتبارها تنظيمًا إرهابيًا، ومصادرة مقراتها وأملاكها وأموالها، حسب الصفحة الرسمية للموقع. - See more at: http://almogaz.com/news/politics/2013/08/18/1057029#sthash.wmdlIio3.dpuf

UNEDITED aerial footage of #Egypt's #June30 #protests #tahrir

UNEDITED aerial footage of Egypt's June 30 protests

[UNEDITED VERSION] Egypt's Armed Forces has released footage from protests that it has captured using Military helicopters. The video raises tensions between President Morsi and the Armed Forces, and shows the extent of the June 30 protests. Check out the completely UNEDITED footage below:

only in #egypt Egyptian Collective suicide

Egyptian Collective suicide

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Terrorism has no religion only in #Egypt government

الارهاب لا دين لة فقط فى مصر لة حكومة

Terrorism has no religion only in Egypt government

#Egypt: Time to address violence against women in all its forms

Violence against women in Egypt gained national and international attention following a series of well-publicized sexual assaults on women in the vicinity of Tahrir Square earlier this year during protests commemorating the second anniversary of the “25 January Revolution”.

Unfortunately, these instances of violence against women were neither isolated nor unique.

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Whether in the public or private spheres, at the hands of state or non-state actors, violence against women in Egypt continues to go mostly unpunished.

Most cases go unreported for a plethora of reasons that stem from discriminatory gender stereotypes, the lack of women’s awareness of their rights, social and family pressures to remain silent, discriminatory legislation and women’s economic dependence. Even when women do surmount these obstacles and turn to state institutions for protection, justice and reparation, they are often confronted with dismissive or abusive officials who fail to refer cases to prosecution or trial, and lengthy and expensive court proceedings if they want to get divorced. Women who do manage to obtain a divorce then face the likelihood that court orders for child support or spousal maintenance will not be enforced.

In recent weeks during an Amnesty International mission to Egypt, I met several women and girls who were assaulted by their husbands and other relatives. Many suffer in silence for years while they are subjected to beatings, severe physical and verbal abuse and rape.

Om Ahmed (mother of Ahmed) told me that her husband began drinking and beating her after three years of marriage. She recounted daily abuse, punctuated with particularly vicious attacks. In one instance, her ex-husband smashed a full glass bottle on her face, leaving her without her front teeth. She stayed with him for another 17 years, partially, she explained, because she had nowhere else to go, and partially because she did not want to bring “shame” on her family. She never considered approaching the police, shrugging:

“The police don’t care, they don’t think it is a problem if a husband beats his wife. If you are a poor woman, they treat you like you don’t even exist and send you back home to him after hurling a few insults.”

Eventually, Om Ahmed’s husband kicked her out of their home, and for the next year she lived with her three children in an unfinished building in an informal settlement without running water and electricity. After two years in family court, she was awarded a meagre 150 Egyptian pounds (approx. US$21) per month for her daughter’s child support (her other two children don’t qualify for it as they over 18). Her own spousal maintenance decision is still pending.

Unlike Egyptian Muslim men who can divorce their wives unilaterally – and without giving any reason – women who wish to divorce their abusive husbands have to go to court and prove “fault” or that their marriage caused them “harm”. To prove physical harm, they have to present evidence, such as medical reports or eyewitness testimony, in proceedings that are drawn out and expensive. Many women’s rights lawyers and lawyers working in family court cases told me that this is a very difficult task for many women because they don’t always report the abuse to the police, and neighbours, who are usually the only witnesses other than household members, are reluctant to get involved.

I met one woman who had a particularly striking case. She told me:

“We [my ex-husband and I] only lived together for a few months, but it took me six years to get a divorce, and I am still in court to get my full [financial] rights back. Problems started soon after we got married, and he would beat me. His mother and sisters were also abusive… After a particularly bad beating, I went to the police station to lodge a complaint, but I withdrew it under pressure [from my husband who threatened me]. The case took so long because he had good lawyers who knew all the loopholes in the law.”

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In 2000, a second option for women seeking divorce was introduced, whereby women can obtain khul’ (no-fault divorce) from the courts without having to prove harm, but only if they forego their right to spousal maintenance and other financial rights. These court proceedings can still take up to a year and put women who are financially dependent on their husbands at a severe disadvantage. Despite this, several divorcees told Amnesty International that they opted for khul’ after waiting for a court fault-based divorce for years.

Twenty-four-year-old Om Mohamed (mother of Mohamed) told Amnesty International:

“We have been separated for over four years, but I am still neither married nor divorced… I was trying to prove all this time in court that he didn’t spend any money on me or our son, and that [my husband] used to beat me with whatever he could find under his hands, including belts and wires. Every time I go to court, the hearing is postponed, and I need this or that paper. I spent a lot of money on lawyers, and got nowhere… Eventually, I gave up and in January [2013] I raised a khul’ case.”

During my visit to Egypt in May and June this year, I also met women and girls who suffered violence and sexual abuse at the hands of other relatives. A 17-year-old girl told me that she ran away from home after a particularly brutal beating by her brother, who stabbed her in the nose with a kitchen knife, and burned her with a hot iron. Her scars corroborated her story. She was too scared to report the incident at the hospital where she sought treatment, as her brother had accompanied her and threatened to kill her if she spoke out. She spent months wandering the streets before being admitted into a private shelter for children.

Another woman who fled home after her brother sexually assaulted her found temporary protection in a shelter run by an association under the Ministry of Insurances and Social Affairs. She fled from the shelter after the administration insisted that she give them her brother’s contact details, to try to set up a “reconciliation meeting”.

There are only nine official shelters across Egypt, which are severely under-resourced and in need of capacity-building and training. Most survivors of domestic violence don’t even know they exist. The idea of shelters is not widely accepted, because of the stigma attached for women living outside their family or marital homes.

A staff member at a shelter recounted to me how, after an awareness-raising session in a village in Upper Egypt, a village leader got up and – in front of all those gathered – threatened to “stab to death” any woman who dared to leave an abusive household and run to a shelter. In another instance, the husband of a woman living in a shelter threatened to set it on fire.

In May, the authorities announced the establishment of a special female police unit to combat sexual violence and harassment. While this may be a welcome step, the Egyptian authorities need to do much more to prevent and punish gender-based violence and harassment, starting by unequivocally condemning it. They also need to amend legislation to ensure that survivors receive effective remedies. They must also show political will and tackle the culture of denial, inaction and, in some cases complicity, of law enforcement officials who not only fail to protect women from violence but also to investigate properly all allegations and bring perpetrators to trial.

Egyptian women were at the forefront of the popular protests that brought down Hosni Mubarak’s presidency some two and a half years ago. Today, they continue to challenge the prevailing social attitudes and gender biases that facilitate violence against women, in all its forms, to continue with impunity – while they continue their fight against marginalization and exclusion from the political processes shaping the country’s future.

Meanwhile, with the help of human and women’s rights organizations, seven women who were sexually assaulted around Tahrir Square lodged a complaint with the prosecution in March 2013 calling for accountability and redress. Investigations were started, but have since stalled.

One of the lawyers for the women was told by a prosecutor that the case was not that “important” compared to other cases on his desk. But the plaintiffs are not giving up. As one of them told Amnesty International: “Even as I was being abused, I felt that I will not stay quiet, I will not back down. They have to be punished.”

By Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty International’s Egypt researcher

#Anonymous Launches #OpTurkey, Takes Down Turkish Government Websites #Turkey

Hackers belonging to the nebulous Internet collective Anonymous launched #OpTurkey this week in a show of solidarity with fierce anti-government protests that have sent shock waves throughout Turkey.

The cyberattack, which targeted the Turkish government led by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, brought down websites belonging to President Abdullah Gul, the Justice and Development Party (AKP), the Istanbul Directorate of Security and the Istanbul Governor’s Office on Sunday.

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According to the Russian website RT, the Anonymous attack came after a series of brutal clashes between police and protesters that arose on Friday after Turkish police conducted a crackdown on a peaceful environmental demonstration in Istanbul’s Taksim Square. The ensuing conflict, during which police fired tear gas at protestors, some of whom fought back by throwing rocks, seemed to take on broader political significance

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We are coming Turkey. Be strong, We will not let you down. Stay in the streets, We will take your government offline. #OpTurkey
— Anonymous(@AnonOpsMob) June 2, 2013

“It’s the first time in Turkey’s democratic history that an unplanned, peaceful protest movement succeeded in changing the government’s approach and policy,” Sinan Ulgen, chairman of the Turkish research group the Center for Economic and Foreign Policy Studies, told the New York Times. “It gave for the first time a strong sense of empowerment to ordinary citizens to demonstrate and further their belief that if they act like they did the last few days they can influence events in Turkey.”

The government’s reaction drew the ire of Anonymous, who slammed the Turkish government for acting like “petty dictators.” In a message posted on YouTube on Sunday, Anonymous announced the launch of Operation Turkey, saying, “We have watched for days with horror as our brothers and sisters in Turkey who are peacefully rising up against their tyrannical government [have been] brutalized, beaten, run over by riot vehicles, shot with water cannons and gassed in the streets."

“Turkey is supposed to be a so-called modern democracy, but the Turkish government behaves like the petty dictators in China or Iran,” the missive’s computer generated voice continued. “Anonymous is outraged by this behavior and we will unite across the globe and bring the Turkish government to its knees."

The collective stated that it planned to “attack every Internet and communications asset of the Turkish government.” In tweets, the group encouraged protesters to “be strong,” promising to lend their support.

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